A self-powered system to electrochemically generate ammonia driven by palladium single atomelectrocatalyst

The utilization of single atoms(SAs)as trifunctional electrocatalyst for nitro-gen reduction,oxygen reduction,and oxygen evolution reactions(NRR,ORR,and OER)is still a formidable challenge.Herein,we devise one-pot synthesized palladium SAs stabilized on nitrogen-doped carbon palladium SA electrocat-alyst(Pd-SA/NC)as efficient trifunctional electrocatalyst for NRR,ORR,and OER.Pd-SA/NC performs a robust catalytic activity toward NRR with faradaic efficiency of 22.5%at-0.25 V versus reversible hydrogen electrode(RHE),and the relative Pd utilization efficiency is enhanced by 17-fold than Pd-NP/NC.In addition,the half-wave potential reaches 0.876 V versus RHE,amounting to a 58-time higher mass activity than commercial Pt/C.Moreover,the overpotential at 10 mA cm-2 is as low as 287 mV for Pd-SA/NC,outperforming the commer-cial IrO2 by 360 times in turnover frequency at 1.6 V versus RHE.Accordingly,the assembled rechargeable zinc-air battery(ZAB)achieves a maximum power den-sity of 170 mW cm-2,boosted by 2.3 times than Pt/C–IrO2.Two constructed ZABs efficiently power the NRR-OER system to electrochemically generate ammonia implying its superior trifunctionality.

Boosting Oxygen Evolution Reaction Performance on NiFe‑Based Catalysts Through d‑Orbital Hybridization

Anion-exchange membrane water electrolyzers(AEMWEs)for green hydrogen production have received intensive attention due to their feasibility of using earth-abundant NiFe-based catalysts.By introducing a third metal into NiFe-based catalysts to construct asymmetrical M-NiFe units,the d-orbital and electronic structures can be adjusted,which is an important strategy to achieve sufficient oxygen evolution reaction(OER)performance in AEMWEs.Herein,the ternary NiFeM(M:La,Mo)catalysts featured with distinct M-NiFe units and varying d-orbitals are reported in this work.Experimental and theoretical calculation results reveal that the doping of La leads to optimized hybridization between d orbital in NiFeM and 2p in oxygen,resulting in enhanced adsorption strength of oxygen intermediates,and reduced rate-determining step energy barrier,which is responsible for the enhanced OER performance.More critically,the obtained NiFeLa catalyst only requires 1.58 V to reach 1 A cm^(−2) in an anion exchange membrane electrolyzer and demonstrates excellent long-term stability of up to 600 h.

Biosynthesis of Biocompatible Cadmium Telluride Quantum Dots Using Yeast Cells

We demonstrate a simple and efficient biosynthesis method to prepare easily harvested biocompatible cadmium telluride(CdTe)quantum dots(QDs)with tunable fluorescence emission using yeast cells.Ultraviolet-visible(UV-vis)spectroscopy,photoluminescence(PL)spectroscopy,X-ray diffraction(XRD),and transmission electron microscopy(TEM)confirm that the CdTe QDs are formed via an extracellular growth and subsequent endocytosis pathway and have size-tunable optical properties with fluorescence emission from 490 to 560 nm and a cubic zinc blende structure with good crystallinity.In particular,the CdTe QDs with uniform size(2-3.6 nm)are protein-capped,which makes them highly soluble in water,and in situ bio-imaging in yeast cells indicates that the biosynthesized QDs have good biocompatibility.This work provides an economic and environmentally friendly approach to synthesize highly fluorescent biocompatible CdTe QDs for bio-imaging and bio-labeling applications.